Did you know that March (i.e. the third month in the year) was specifically chosen as World Down Syndrome Day to signify the uniqueness of the triplication of the 21st chromosome? In all honesty I didn’t know that, nor did I realise it was World Down Syndrome Day until earlier this week. There seems to be a lot we may not know about Down Syndrome and the lives of those with an extra chromosome. CoorDown released a new campaign Assume That I Can. CoorDown is an Italian charity that was officially established in 2003 but their work first started in 1987. CoorDown aims to raise awareness of the potential those with Down Syndrome have while also promoting their inclusion in school and the workplace by identifying issues in shared policies.

I thought it would be interesting to see how audiences reacted to this ad using the Element Human creative testing platform. Before we dive in, let’s take a look at the ad:

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For me, the message was clear: our assumptions of those with Down Syndrome directly shape their reality, and if we can change those assumptions, we can unlock their true potential. But did this message resonate with audiences, and did it achieve cut-through in the busy social media environment for this little-known brand?

With Element Human’s testing suite you can take an ad creative and insert it into a social media environment to test how it performs in context. This means ad campaigns can be tested ‘in the wild’, offering the most accurate read of performance by collecting real human reaction data. Currently there are four different social feeds available: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and just this week we released YouTube Shorts.

For my test, I chose two of Element Human’s test environments, TikTok and YouTube Shorts. By doing this I can see how ad performance compares across platforms (I’ll be exploring some of these differences later on). The test was run with a general population US audience, totalling 700 respondents across 2 x Tests and their Control groups. The Element Human system then tracks and records audience data comprising both biometric and survey that break down how the audience responded, what did and didn’t work, and how it impacted the brand across the funnel; all compared to deep performance benchmarks. The test incorporates four techniques:

1. Attention (via eye-tracking)
2. Emotion (via facial coding)
3. Memory (using an implicit association test)
4. Brand uplift (using a post-view survey with traditional brand metrics)

So how did it perform?

In the US market, CoorDown is not well known, so the brand had a challenge here to punch through with awareness of the brand and what they stand for, with an evidently powerful emotional creative. In the control group, Top of Mind Awareness of CoorDown in the category was literally 0% - however as a result of seeing the ad in-feed on TikTok, Top of Mind Awareness jumped to 9%; which is very impressive performance and highlights just how attention-grabbing the ad was in-feed. Growing awareness from nothing is no easy feat and a true testament to the creativity of CoorDown’s latest campaign.

And what messaging did CoorDown land with viewers? We tested this using Element Human’s Message Association Test. In this case the highest shift in agreement was ‘CoorDown are challenging stigmas associated with Down Syndrome’. (↑46%). The ad does an incredible job of revealing the lived experience of those with Down Syndrome through relatable scenarios that are turned on their head when you realise how differently a person with Down Syndrome is treated. Through powerful visuals and compelling narrative, this message is landed.

We are off to a great start as CoorDown have already successfully increased awareness and landed their key messaging!

One of the real challenges of marketing on social media is the limited attention opportunity brands have these days. Ad-pacing has had to evolve to cope. TV ads used to start slow and build to a climax, but this doesn’t work in the world of Social. Brands are learning that attention is curved - for every second that elapses you lose a portion of your audience, so the key is to work to retain them and mitigate that loss. Clustered in a feed between a host of cat videos and influencers on perennial holiday, the key is to stand out, grab attention, and 'buck the curve'.

On TikTok, CoorDown delivered an in-feed attention score of 26 seconds. For a 90 second ad this may not sound like much, but this puts it in the top 8% of all TikTok ads tested on the Element Human platform (benchmarked against more than 50K data points).

It just keeps getting better and better.

So CoorDown grabbed attention quickly, and unlocked a substantial upper-funnel outcome, driving both Attention and Awareness.

But how did it perform mid-funnel? One of the key aspects to measure is the emotional impact of the creative, and how that changed perceptions of the brand. Element Human has a particularly rigorous way of measuring this that taps into the subconscious associations that were created. Did you know that a lot of our buying decision-making comes from our subconscious? That’s why it’s important to look below the surface.

An implicit association test (IAT) measures your ‘implicit’ (or subconscious) associations with a brand by recording your reaction speed when presented with a brand and a set of brand attributes (you can read more about it here). For CoorDown we tested four brand attributes: Creative, Relevant, Thought-Provoking and Trustworthy.

This revealed that CoorDown had an issue with being seen as Creative. In fact, 25% of viewers had an implicit negative reaction in the Control group, but the compelling creative significantly reduced this, whilst also delivering a 42% increase in positive association.

So why, of all things, was an association with 'Creativity' the key mover here? The key is in the story....in the next section we’re going to see why CoorDown earned this change in perception by including an incredible jaw-dropping moment that viscerally demonstrates the potential of those with Down Syndrome in an unexpected way.

Before we explore this, don’t forget that we also tested this ad inside YouTube Shorts, so how did the ad perform in both contexts?

One of the biggest challenges in media measurement is understanding the power of context - just because your ad did well on one media channel, doesn’t mean it will do so on another. Context drives behaviour, and behaviour drives performance. On different platforms viewers behave differently, think differently and respond differently. Understanding how your creative performs in context can help you find your audience and optimise for context.

We already know that ‘Creative’ had the biggest lift in implicit association, however what was interesting is how this was more effective on TikTok than YouTube Shorts for both Creative and Trustworthy. Clearly CoorDown can expect stronger mid-funnel performance on the TikTok component of their media plan.

But what was it about the creative that drove these scores? Understanding key moments, what worked and why, is critical information that can help with content strategy. This is where emotion tracking comes into play.

The first part of the ad was a hard watch as it dawned on me just how restricted the lives of those with Down Syndrome can be. And it looks like our viewers felt the same as we see a rise in sadness during the first part of the video - look at the blue spike in the emotion story below.

But 60 seconds in is where the ad levels up. Our protagonist turns to the camera and says ‘I learn fucking Shakespeare’. It’s a shocking moment that causes us to suddenly re-evaluate the person on the screen - she’s real, badass and not taking any shit. She then throws it back at us with the line: ‘You assumed I can’t swear right?’. In the age of sanitised advertising, dropping the F bomb is head-turning - and I am absolutely here for it.

It’s self-examination happening in real time, and looking at the emotion data we can see that this is the cornerstone emotion moment of the piece. We saw a huge Happiness spike at this moment as the audience broke into broad smiles:

This is a Happiness moment that is Top 8% of all ads tested on TikTok, and Top 7% in the US.

But that’s not all, because our girl is not done. In an empowering moment for all women, no less those with Down Syndrome, she challenges us: ‘‘You assume I can’t have sex?’. It left our viewers shocked as she throws her liberties right back at us, challenges our assumptions, and humanises the condition. We saw a spike in Surprise at this moment.

So the content was clearly impactful and made people feel a range of emotions. But why is that important? One study found that the attention aspect of emotion has been linked to an increase in memory and learning (Pekrun, 1992; Seli et al., 2016). Longer memory of a brand drives purchase, as it enhances mental availability when buying scenarios present themselves.

Looking at the lower part of the funnel, CoorDown’s call to action was to encourage donations to help their work in promoting inclusion for those with Down Syndrome. 62% of TikTok users who encountered the ad in-feed said they are likely to make a donation to CoorDown (↑43%). And 67% said they are likely to recommend supporting CoorDown to friends and family (↑45%). Impressive numbers for an ad in a social media feed, particularly for a previously unknown brand. As we can see, this was facilitated by central and clear branding that drew the eye:

Assume That I Can is clearly a powerful ad that makes you stop and think. We have been on a rollercoaster of emotions and it was so interesting to see the true campaign performance with Element Human’s ad-testing technology; exploring how viewers reacted, what worked and what didn’t, and the impact the ad creative had on brand goals in context. But let's be honest - great creatives can do great things, and all of this worked because CoorDown both moved us and stopped us in our tracks.

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If you’d like to find out more about CoorDown or donate to their cause then click here.

Written by Georgina Ferreira, Data & Insights Executive at Element Human.

This analysis contained only a small portion of the creative & campaign metrics tracked by Element Human. And it only took 13 minutes to set up and 3 hours to complete! Ready to test your creative and show off the performance of your advertising? Let’s chat.